My hands are still tingling from holding the palm sander for an hour and half, in spite of doing the dishes and watering the garden since taking a break from my project. I had to stop, look, sit back and say to myself, “that’s enough for one day…”

I bought myself a little sander last Thursday. It’s been sitting on the bottom stair, reminding me each time I pass by that there’s a project waiting for me. I’m giving myself some grace; after all, it’s been more than a month since I ripped out all the carpets that were harbouring the nasty dust mites that were giving my younger son massive bloody noses each day. The bloody noses have stopped… and in removing 50 year old carpets (maybe 60, maybe older, hard to say in this old house), I uncovered treasure. To my surprise, those ugly old berber carpets, long used and worn, hid beneath them 1.5″ thick solid fir treads (or so I’m told by people who know more than me…).

These were never meant to be floors to be seen; they had been crudely nailed into place and at some point reinforced with long screws (which I guess helps me date the age of the carpet I just removed).

Tonight, while watching the clock tick the hours by until I can go and get my children back from their dad, I had some time.

I am not a handy person. Or so I have always told myself. Funny how now owning my own place is changing my definition of what “not handy” really means. Especially in a house built sometime around WWII.

I’m not a person used to having help, or friends, or community. It’s hard to explain my own rationale to myself, it sounds strange to my own ears to give voice to my fear that people don’t really like me as a person, they just like what I can do for them – I may not be handy, but I can do a lot of other things; and I really care about other people. My ex convinced me long ago that I wasn’t a likeable person for many reasons, even by my own family. Today is not a day for delving into just how deep those insecurities run. What I mean to say here is how, buying this old home showed me how wrong my assumptions were, and how grateful I am to a community of people who believe in me and who show up. Who help. Who explain patiently how to do things. Who come and cut branches, who figure out how to get my creaky old weed whacker to work and trim my gardens, who lift the heavy things, who climb the ladders I’m afraid of. Who help me find my home. Who are helping me find myself again.

So – my stair tread.

After accidentally sanding my finger (oops, I’ll heal…), I found a bit of a rhythm as I removed slow layers of darkness and grit from the surface of this piece of wood. I found time to reflect and meditate on many things. I found myself identifying with this scarred remnant of an ancient life which we cut down and built a home out of.

In some ways, I found myself marveling at how the sander exfoliated the years from this once living thing. Slowly going from a dark thing, covered in grids of glue and splotches of paint down to a soft lovely cream… but also marveling at the scars and stains on the wood. When I started this project, I wasn’t sure if I would ultimately just paint out the treads with floor paint…but I think I want to show the scars. I want the life of the tree to be present, to be shown, to be remembered. Maybe I want that for myself too.

I found myself wondering at the darkened stains that emanate from the knots in the wood where the tree’s branches were cut off. Were those darkened stains the tree’s way of weeping? Scientists tell us now, more than ever, how sentient life is; how aware even our trees are. How they talk to one another. Warn each other of danger, using networks of fungi to communicate fire, wind, storm…. people.

God made us shepherds of this earth. But, as far as I know, at no point does it say that those living things over which we were given dominion also don’t have souls, or at least sentience, awareness, pain, language, love. And we take their lives, wantonly for our own needs; our own ends. My house.

We do it to each other, too. At what point did we forget to love? Was it when Adam fell? How quickly after Jesus gave himself for us did we shrug and return back to cutting, taking, using, hurting? Will my scars on my soul show that same darkened stain emanating from them? Will they appear to God as knots that bled out, staining the area around them within my soul?

This old home was all I could afford. The mortgage will add to my anxiety for the next 40 years of my life. But. Every home I considered while hunting for a safe place to shelter all the living things from my former life, every one smelled of dejection, loss, pain, darkness, except for this one. Which, in spite of its age and need of care, smelled more like hope. Felt safe.

I pray that in slowly turning this old place into my own home, I find a way to be at peace in myself. The scripture readings this weekend remind us that God knows every hair on our heads; just thinking of the unconditional love he offers to us, broken and sinful as we are, brings me to my knees in a shaking kind of fear and wonder … I have not believed in myself in so long, and yet God knows me and loves me unconditionally in spite of all my failings. He answered every prayer I whispered, and here I am – in a home to shelter my children and our pets and our plants… figuring out how to sand youth and beauty back into an ancient tree who gave its life so that I might be here one day.